The Battle with the World

Jesus was not starting a new community of Essenes. Do you remember the Essenes whose work was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls? These were people who drew apart from civilization to live in total isolation so that they could keep themselves pure. for the coming of the Messiah. And while they're hiding down there in the caves, the Messiah came.

And they missed him. Genuine Christians, of course, don't want to be worldly. But what does it mean to be in the world, but not of it? To quote the Apostle Paul, what does it mean to not be conformed to this world? These are important questions and ones we can easily get wrong.

I know I did as a young Christian. Today, here on Renewing Your Mind, as we continue our C-sproll study on pleasing God. We'll consider our daily, even our minute-by-minute battle with the world. As we seek to live the Christian life, We should be diligent in our study of this topic, so I do encourage you to request digital access to the messages and study guide. Along with Dr.

Spoll's companion book, when you give a donation in support of this daily outreach at renewingyourmind.org.

Some people believe that to truly please God, we have to retreat from the world. But that's not what Jesus taught.

So, to help us understand how we're to relate to the world and glorify God in it, Here's Dr. Sproul. Martin Luther said that the Christian, in his struggle for obedience, has many obstacles to overcome, but basically We are involved in warfare that takes place not on one front or two fronts, but on three fronts, and that the triad of enemies that confront the Christian are, as Luther maintained, The world, the flesh. And the devil. That's a very famous quotation from Luther.

And of course, Luther understood that when he made that list of the world and the flesh and the devil, that though he distinguished among those three particular enemies, he understood that all three of them were intimately related one to the other. That the spirit of the flesh of which the Bible speaks is that part of our nature that is enraptured by and seduced by the spirit of this world, and this world is the arena. over which Satan has a particular level of influence and even at times a kind of dominion. And so though we distinguish among these three, we don't want to separate them one from the other. But we will look at each one of these seriatum.

And in this session, we're going to consider the Christians' struggle with what the New Testament calls. The world.

Now obviously the term world in the New Testament is used in more than one way. In some cases the term world simply refers to this planet. There's nothing pejorative, nothing negative about the term when it's used in that way. It's simply a geographical location. This place is distinguished from Mars or Jupiter or the heavens above.

But also the term world is used in the New Testament to refer to the fallen sphere of this planet, to a kind of standpoint or perspective. That is anti-God. That is more man-centered than God-centered. Let me read a brief portion from the Gospel according to St. John to see how Jesus makes this kind of distinction with respect to the world.

I'm going to pick it up in chapter 17, verse 12.

Now I am no more in the world. But these are in the world, and I come to thee. Here you see, world clearly refers. to this place, doesn't it? He said, I'm about to depart from this location, from the world, but now, Father, I'm praying for my friends and my disciples who are going to stay behind here, active in this world.

He goes on to say, Holy Father, Keeped. Through thine own name, those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are. And while I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name. And those that you gave me, I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the Son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now I come to you, that these things that I speak in the world, that they might have joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them. Because they are not of the world, but Even as I am not of the world.

Now do you see how the term world is beginning to take on that slightly different nuance to refer not simply to geographical location, but to one's standpoint or perspective with regard to the things of God? The world Is that sphere which is or that group of people. that has no Affection. For the things of God. The world exists in this regard in antithesis And opposition and tension over against the kingdom of God.

And so he says. I pray not. that you should take them out of the world. But that you should keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

So sanctify them through your truth. Thy word is truth. That is a loaded statement, isn't it? Jesus said. I'm not asking, Father, that you Take them out of the world.

Oh, how I wish we would listen. to the prayer of Christ at that point. Because in every generation of Christian history, there is always that pull and that tug within the Christian community to so disassociate ourselves from anything that smacks of this world. that we withdraw into isolation in order to keep ourselves pure. If we would only read the Gospel according to St.

Luke. For in Luke's gospel, we see a motif that is hammered home again and again by Luke in terms of the teaching of Jesus over against, once again, the Pharisees. One of the doctrines that emerged among the Pharisees Was this doctrine? Salvation by segregation Remember, one of the things that the Pharisees became so incensed about with Jesus. Was that Jesus, in their opinion, contaminated himself?

By spending time with publicans and tax collectors and sinners. The things that the Pharisees wouldn't go near. I remember once walking down the street in conversation with a friend of mine who was an Anglican priest. And he was rather proud of his consecration into the priesthood. And we were in the streets of Philadelphia, and this little boy came.

He was selling newspapers or something. He was kind of like a street urchin. He was filthy dirty. You know, he had ice cream or something all over his face, and his shirt was dirty, and he had tattered clothes on. And he came on and he grabbed a hold of the priest's sleeve and began to tug at it, saying, Mister, Mister, and he was trying to sell him a magazine or something.

And suddenly the priest turned around and threw the boy's hand off his hand and said, How dare you touch the arm? of a priest of God. I wanted to stop right there and look at my friend the priest and say, How dare you! Act as if The arm of a priest. We're untouchable.

by a human bag. I mean, Jesus would have embraced. That boy. On the street. He would never buy in to this idea of.

So radical separation from the world that one sort of manifests a spirit of contempt. Jesus said, I don't ask that you take them out of the world. Jesus was not starting a new community of Essenes. Do you remember the Essenes whose work was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls? These were people who drew apart from civilization to live in total isolation so that they could keep themselves pure.

for the coming of the Messiah. And while they're hiding down there in the caves along the Dead Sea. The Messiah came. And they missed him. They were so busy keeping themselves out of the world.

Jesus said, I don't ask that you take them out of the world. But that you Keep them. From evil. That is, that you preserve them. While they are living out their faith and living out their life in the midst.

of the world. I think that's consistent with what the Apostle Paul teaches in his grand climax and the practical application of the book of Romans after the expansive development of heavy doctrine and theology. You remember how he begins the 12th chapter? Where he said, I beseech you, therefore, my brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And then what does he say? And do not be conformed to this world. but be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind. Let's take a look at those two words. Conformity.

and transformation. We see the same root in both of them. The word form. Smack. which refers to structure.

or system. And the only difference really that we find in these words is with the prefix, right? The prefix con means What? Chili con carny means Beans with meat, right?

So that con here means with.

So that to conform is literally to be with it. to be a part of the leading acceptable structures of the current world system.

Well, what is it? that we're being Drawn to conformity. The Germans have a word for it. You know how the Germanic language is, they'll just take two good concrete nouns and just squash them together and make one word out of them. And get the word zeitgeist.

You've all heard the word geist. I'm sure, in the English language, because you've heard of Polar geese. And polar geyser kind of Well ghosties that go bumping the night.

Well, the zeit is the German word for time. And Geist is the German word for spirit. And so this compact word Zeitgeist means literally the spirit of the times. or the spirit of the age. And what the Germans mean by the zeitgeist is basically this.

What's in? Right now. What is fashionable? What is acceptable? What is it that we do?

Now, in the 19th century, a man became very important, not only as a literary figure in Germany, but as a philosopher. And he emerged as one of the most important critics of his own generation, and his name was Frederick Nietzsche. And you know that Nietzsche is famous for his declaration of the death of God and for his advocacy of what he called biological heroism, by which he would seek for the construction of a super-race. And Hitler ran with that and took it to an extreme. But Nietzsche complained of the decadence of 19th-century Europe, and in that complaint, Said that basically the vast majority of people Live What he called By the dictates of a herd morality.

That is, Nietzsche's criticism was this. He said, for the most part, people are like sheep. And they just follow uncritically And without any courage, Whatever is expected from them in their contemporary situation. In other words, they become slaves. Two The Zeitgeist or the Spirit of the Age.

And that's why he called for Superman, the Übermensch. He said the Ubermensch will be known as a person who will leave the herd. and dare to think for himself. In other words, the superman of Nietzsche would be the ultimate non-conformist.

Now At least that much the New Testament has in common with Nietzsche's nihilism. Both call us to a kind of non-conformity. It's not the same kind of non-conformity, I hasten to add. But Paul says, do not be conformed. to this world.

Now if ever There was a passage of scripture distorted by Christians. That's it. Because we look at that and we only read half of the passage. And we say, oh, well, what God wants from us. If we're going to be really righteous, we're going to be known.

for our non-conformity. Do you realize, on the one hand, how difficult it is to be a nonconformist, as I've already indicated? We're so pooled to acceptance by the group and so on. On the other hand, he realized how easy it is to be a nonconformist. of a kind.

What happens with Christians is they say, well, we're going to show the world that we're different. By refusing to participate in the world's worldliness, which means we won't dance and we won't wear makeup and we won't go to movies and we won't play cards. I remember when I went to my first job to teach at Christian College. And I was hired as to teach the Bible. And before the school opened, they had a picnic on the beach and some students pulled out a deck of cards and started playing bridge.

and the dean came over and confiscated the cards. And that was my initiation to discover, to my horror, that the only card game that this group of Christians were allowed to play was Rook. The Christian card game. Sure. I said, rook.

I said, Rook. I quit playing rook when I was eight. And I said, what are they going to do when they find out that their Bible professor plays in duplicate bridge tournaments? It never occurred to me. That There was anything spiritual or unspiritual about contract bridge.

Imagine it Absolutely incredible that that kind of thing emerges in a subculture. But what happens is we look around and we see things that people in the secular world do, and we want to make sure that we don't appear any way like secular people.

So we set up these artificial. forms of nonconformity. Ladies and gentlemen, the kingdom of God has nothing to do with God. with Rook. Yeah.

Those are superficial types of nonconformity. If you want to be a non-conformist. In the biblical sense, be somebody whose word can be trusted. Be somebody. who will do what's right even if it costs them money.

That's different. It's not that if everybody in the world is wearing white hats, we start to wear red ones. That's not the non-conformity that the New Testament is talking about. But we read the rest of the verse and we see. That we are not simply to be non-conformists for non-conformity's sake.

But we are to Be transformed. And here the prefix means everything. To be transformed means to go over. Above Beyond. The structures.

of the present world. When I first became a Christian, The fellow that led me to Christ made a statement to me in the first two weeks. I said, What does it mean to you to be a Christian? He says, What it means to me to be a Christian is that I'm going to outwork you. I'm going to outfight you.

And I'm going to outlove you. And that's what he understood. that to be a Christian meant a call. to excellence. A call to excellence.

that went beyond the standards. Of what was acceptable in the world. Most Christians today take their ethical guidance from what's legal. or what's accepted in the rest of the world. Or we want to have the civil magistrates enforce the Christian ethic.

Say, wait a minute. The Christian ethics the same no matter what the Supreme Court does. or what the Supreme Court says. I don't march to that drumbeat. We have a Lord who gives us our ethic and his commandments.

He said, Obey my commandments. That's our responsibility. to be transformed people. To get our call not from what everybody else is doing. But from what we're called to be doing.

as children of Christ. That's different. Isn't it? From simple conformity to the standards of this world. But the non-conformity principle, as I said, can be so trivialized.

That the freshness and the life that is found in the Christian ethic becomes smothered and camouflaged and eclipsed beneath all this stuff. And so we begin to perpetuate our own, as I said, subcultural standards that have little or nothing to do with Christianity. And we fail to hear the prayer of Jesus: I ask not that you take them out of the world. Not too long ago, I received a telephone call from the headmaster. of a Christian academy, a high school.

And he said, Dr. Sprawl, he said, I don't know what to do. He said, I have a terrible problem here in the school. And I said, what? He said, well, We're trying to have a Christian education here in this high school.

And so this year in our senior English program, we've had selected readings from Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway in our course on American Literature. And when some of the parents found out that their kids were reading Steinbeck and Hemingway, they went bananas. And they have protested to the board now, and they want us to get those books out of the school.

Now the question I have, Dr. Sproll, is this. How can I teach? A course. In American literature, without teaching Hemingway and Steinbeck.

I said, that's an easy question to answer. You can't. You simply can't. Any attempt to educate people in American literature that would eliminate Steinbeck and Hemingway is simply dishonest. But that's what was expected by the parents and members of the board: that Christian education means all you ever do.

study Christians. I had the president of a Christian college say to me not too long ago, he said, We've come to this place now that we have a Christian who has this option. He either gets. A Christian education. or a good education.

And he didn't say it cynically. He said it tragically. And yet, when you look at the giants of the Christian faith, Saint Paul Calvin Luther, Edwards, read their writings. See how verse they were. In the great literature of the world.

But they weren't seduced by it. When my son was 12 years old, he was reading Thomas Huxley. But with my supervision. Because I was committed to his education from a Christian perspective, from a Christian worldview. But he had to understand the world.

And I had people say to me, but doesn't the Bible say beware of vain philosophy? Does say that. But how in the world? Can you be aware of something unless you're first aware of it? I do not ask.

that you take them out of the world. But that You keep them from evil. That's a fine line to walk. The world Is a threatening place for someone to make a spiritual pilgrimage. But it is the only place we can have a spiritual pilgrimage.

And it happens to be. The arena of redemption. The place where we are called to live. function and to minister. Let me just close with this: that Luther also said that there tends to be a pattern in Christian experience as he examined the lives of the great spiritual heroes of the past, beginning with the Apostle Paul and going through Augustine and so on.

He says, at conversion, When a person is converted to Christianity, the contrast between the world and the things of Christ becomes so. Dramatic. The people Quit the world. And they go through a period where they absolutely withdraw from the world, like Paul went to Arabia. And it's almost, Luther said, it's almost necessary for us to go through that stage in our Christian development where we're totally world-denying so that we can become rooted and grounded in the spiritual things and get our roots down deep.

And Luther says, but we don't reach maturity as Christians. Until we are able once again to embrace the world. He didn't mean by that. the fall back into worldliness. What he meant by that is to come back into the world.

And see it. as God sees it. and to love it as God loves it. and to learn from it even. We're God's truth.

can come through it. And so that since the first of the three mortal struggles that we have with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We'll look at the other two. in our subsequent lectures. Not conforming to this world and instead being transformed by the renewal of our minds.

looks very different than what some people have taught. And you know, it's actually from that verse, Romans 12, 2. Where we get the name of this outreach, Renewing Your Mind. And we pray that as you hear teaching from men like R. C.

Sproll, that by God's grace you will be able to live, as R. C. said, a life in which you go over, above, and beyond the structures and systems of the present world. This daily outreach would not be possible without the generosity of listeners like you.

So, to say thank you for your donation today at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343. We will be glad to send you the complete series, Pleasing God, and give you digital access to all the messages and the study guide. Plus we'll send you the companion book also titled Pleasing God.

So, give your gift now at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. You heard today that there are three enemies that confront the Christian. the world, the flesh, and the devil. We're considering all three. But next time, RC will help us understand our battle with the flesh.

That's tomorrow. Here on Renewing Your Mind.